Perelman's lambda-functional and the stability of Ricci-flat metrics (Q690642)

The author studies the local behavior of Ricci flow around a Ricci flat metric on a compact Riemannian manifold, assuming infinitesimal Ricci-flat deformations are integrable. The main insight is to use the variational structure of Perelman's lambda functional in a very precise way. The main results include: (1) A Ricci flat metric is a local maxima of Perelman's lambda functional if and only if the Lichnerowicz Laplacian is nonpositive. This result requires a careful study of the third variation of the lambda functional and to use Ebin-Palais slicing theorem to take care of gauge transformations. (2) The lambda functional satisfies a Lojasiewicz inequality around a Ricci flat metric. This type of inequalities should be very useful for the convergence of Ricci flow around a Ricci-flat metric. (3) The author also proves a transversality result around a Ricci flat metric and this result implies that the Ricci flow does not move excessively in gauge directions. As an application of this new method and results, the author proves various stability and instability results along the Ricci flow. The method used in the article is general in the sense that similar method should be applied to study the local behavior around a fixed point of geometric flows with a variational structure.